Voice recording is commonly used in the prior art for transcription purposes, and companies in that marketplace have developed systems devoted to transcription. Such systems typically are stand-alone systems that record messages from a microphone or record telephone messages. Once a message is recorded either from a microphone, telephone, or other recording mechanism, prior art systems typically allow a user manual control of playback of the recorded message to transcribe such message. Generally, a mechanism, such as a foot pedal, is utilized for controlling the playback of a message while an individual agent (or “user”) transcribes the message. That is, a foot pedal is typically utilized to allow a user to select functions as “Play,” “Rewind,” “Stop,” and “Fast Forward.”
Further, prior art voice messaging systems, and particularly voice mail systems, have evolved to allow for some partitioning of voice messages to reflect segmentation or “forms” based voice input. For example, a voice message can be segmented into a name field, an address field, and a telephone number field. Again, such systems are typically stand-alone systems. Moreover, such systems require a user transcribing a recorded segmented message to listen to the message and control the playback of such message either using the touch-tone keypad of a telephone (in the case of voice mail), or the recording devices typically used for transcribing a message in the prior art, such as a pedal.
Voice messaging has been implemented with telephony applications of the prior art, such as call center applications. For example, suppose a caller, Caller One, calls a call center application of the prior art. Further suppose that the call center offers callers the option of leaving a voice mail message, e.g., “press 1 to leave a voice message.” After holding for an extended period of time, Caller One chooses to leave a voice message. When Caller One chooses to leave a voice message (e.g., by pressing 1 on his touch-tone telephone), Caller One is connected to a voice message application, where Caller One records a voice message. Thereafter, an agent of the call center may retrieve the recorded message and transcribe such message. Typically, an agent retrieves a recorded message from prior art voice messaging systems using a telephone. For example, an agent may use a telephone to access the voice messaging system and provide an access code (e.g., by entering DTMF signals or voice commands) to allow the agent to retrieve voice messages. Thereafter, as described above, the agent manually controls the playback of a recorded message, e.g., by using voice or DTMF commands on the telephone or using another control device, such as a foot pedal.
A transcription application may be utilized in transcribing a voice message which provides the transcriber with a data entry form used for organizing information received in a message. That is, many transcribers are required to enter information from a voice message into a particular data entry form. For instance, such a form may provide a “name” field, “address” field, and “telephone” number field, as well as many other fields, into which a transcriber enters information from a voice message. In prior art systems, a transcriber is required to manually control the playback of a message in order to obtain and transcribe the information needed for each field. Additionally, in the prior art, a transcriber is typically required to manually transcribe information from a message into a data entry form or other type of transcription form.